Unless you live in the jungles and buy your wares with bugs and tugs, your credit score is very important and something you should pay attention to. Even though most of us know that credit scores affect mortgages, loans, and many other aspects of our lives, few know how it’s calculated. The most common score (there are many) used is the FICO, proprietary to the Fair Isaac Corp. So the basics: your score is from 300-850, is calculated using a proprietary formula, and will kick you ass if you fuck it up.

There are five weighted variables that factor into your score–

Payment history (35%)
Amount(s) owed (30%)
Length of credit history (15%)
Amount/frequency of new credit (10%)
Types of credit (10%)

  read more»

Summer’s here, and the sun is hot as Jessica Alba eating Jello off of Keira Knightley’s bare swashbuckles (is that a word?). Yes, you’ll be able to show more skin and get a tan, but it also means you’re investing for some battered wrinkly leathery iguana skin once you hit your latter years. According to SkinCarePhysicians.com, the sun can really wreck your skin worse than jet fuel wrecks your liver.

Without protection from the sun’s rays, just a few minutes of exposure each day over the years can cause noticeable changes to the skin. Freckles, age spots, spider veins on the face, rough and leathery skin, fine wrinkles that disappear when stretched, loose skin, a blotchy complexion, actinic keratoses (thick wart-like, rough, reddish patches of skin), and skin cancer can all be traced to sun exposure.

  read more»

As our parents and those slightly their senior begin to retire and leave the workforce, the dynamics at the workplace will start to change. This will give our generation options and opportunities that our parents didn’t have. The main factor in this will be the great change in total workforce size and also changing perceptions of society.

Payscale.com published an article discussing what the retirement of the baby boomers means for us.

There are about 78 million boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, and as they begin hitting retirement age-the first wave turns 65 in 2011-experts anticipate workforce shortages.   read more»

I for one hate meetings. Unless they’re donuts and cookies meetings, where the topic is to eat donuts and cookies. But for those of us who work in an office, meetings are an unavoidable thing. You might be able to ninja your way out of a few, but the house always wins. My way of getting through them have been to zone out but keep alert for key words (such as ‘action item’ or ‘make 600 copies’). I know that probably isn’t the best way, but it gets me by usually. I’ve been lucky that there’s usually meeting minutes to give me a recap on all that I dazed on.

For a more tactical approach, go grab this month’s GQ (the one with Stephen Colbert on the front holding an oddly frightening Colbert baby) and flip to page 128 for a great article.   read more»

There is a great article in this month’s Men’s Health on reaching our goals of success. Whether it’s “happiness, freedom, or a bank account full of f-you money,” success is something we are all striving for. They identified five virtues that they considered the pillars of success: ambition, intuition, focus, courage, and leadership.

These qualities can help you reach your goal, whether you’re trying to build a hundred-million-dollar software firm or open an old-school diner out on the four-lane.
  read more»

Some people stay at their first company of employment for their whole career. Others hop around a few years before settling in. Others hop around a lot. I recently left my first place of employment for family, and have discovered that leaving is not easy and not just packing my box and going (unless the leaving is due to you getting canned, in which case you do want to vacate fast).

Unless you want to burn bridges, there’s a lot of things that you have to deal with, including writing a letter of resignation to your manager, exit interviews, and paperwork. Aside from the administrative items, there’s the matter of co-workers and friends that you are leaving. Each of these is a topic that I’ll write about later. For now, the focus is the letter of resignation.   read more»

For a lot of us, up until now the road map of life was pretty clear. We learn early on that you go to school. From kindergarten to grade 12 and later on maybe to undergrad and beyond. But there will be a time when the education stage of your life makes way for your professional life, and that’s when things can get a bit confusing. Where do you go from here? How are all those years in school going to help you get where you want to go? Here’s a few ways to put all that education to work.

  read more»

These first few years out of school, we’re usually stuck with loans, credit card debt, car payments, and basic living expenses. This leaves us with not much left over for non-essentials, such as toys and expensive clothes. However, there’s no reason you can’t look good without going into debt. These tips are mostly for the guys, since I’m not an avid reader of Cosmo (we’re workin on getting that female writer).

  read more»

Anyone with substantial credit card debt knows the frustration of trying to reduce a pesky balance. Monthly fees and prime interest rates can sometimes make consumers feel helpless. Luckily, along with a little spending discipline and a good strategy for reducing balances, introductory rates can make becoming debt free within your reach.
  read more»

Paying off debt ranks among the most important things a person who wants financial stability should do since being in financial debt affects just about everything from trying to rent an apartment to getting a loan for school. But it’s also important to know which debt to pay off first, how to choose which debt to pay off first and why it is important to pay it off.   read more»